The next step in life support will be a completely closed air- and-food cycle, with plants grown in space. Plants and microorganisms could even help remove contaminants from the water supply. It is that sort of research that will be necessary if people are ever to establish settlements far beyond Earth.
Biological approaches to supplying food, water, and air could not only save power aboard the station, but could also reduce the number of resupply trips required.
May be some day astronauts will have fresh bread on the station. But even with today's frozen dinners, they already spend 4 hours a day on meals and hygiene. Exercise takes 2 hours more a day. That leaves them just an hour of free time for the simple pleasures of life in space: The view of Earth through the window. A letter e-mailed from their family. Microwave popcorn with a movie. And the friendship of the crew members with whom they share this tiny world.
Text 12D
Прочитайте текст, выскажите свое мнение о его содержании.
Time Travel and New Universes
It is known that for a long time well before Albert Einstein scientists were studying the ideas that seemed strange. Consider a few of such ideas now accepted by the scientific community: clocks that tick slower when they are on rockets in outer space, black holes with the mass of a million stars compressed into a volume smaller than that of atom and subatomic particles whose behaviour depends on whether they are being watched.
But of all strange ideas in physics, perhaps, the strangest one is the hole in the structure of space and time, a tunnel to a distant part of the universe. American researchers have determined that it will apparently be possible in principle for mankind to create an entirely new universe by using the idea of wormhole (ход, прорытый червем; червоточина) connection. Such a universe will automatically create its own wormhole, squeeze through it, and then close the hole after it.
Although to many people such an idea may seem useless and fantastic, it can help scientists to develop their imagination and explore how flexible the laws of physics are. It is such an idea that could give answers to some of the fundamental questions of cosmology: how the universe began, how it works and how it will end.
The idea of wormhole comes directly from the accepted concepts of general relativity. In that theory A.Einstein proved that very massive or dense objects distort space and time around them. One possible distortion is in the form of a tube that can lead anywhere in the universe — even to a place billions of light years away. The name «wormhole» comes about by analogy: imagine a fly on an apple. The only way the fly can reach the apple's other side is the long way over the fruit's surface. But a worm could make a tunnel through the apple and thus shorten the way considerably. A worm- hole in space is the same kind of tunnel; it is a shortcut (кратчайшее расстояние) from one part of the universe to another that reduces the travel time to about zero.
In fact, instantaneous travel leads to the idea of wormhole as time machine. If it were possible to move one end of a wormhole at nearly the speed of light, then, according to general relativity, time at that end would slow down and that part of the tunnel would be younger than the other end. Anything moving from the faster-aging end of the wormhole to the slower one would essentially go backward on time. The type of travel, however, could be nothing like the mechanical time machine described by H. Wells. It is difficult to imagine how a human being could move through a wormhole, since it would theoretically be narrower than an atom and it would tend to disappear the instant it formed.
ДОПОЛНИТЕЛЬНЫЕ ЗАДАНИЯ
Упражнение 1. А. Прочитайте словосочетания из текста 12А и постарайтесь понять значения выделенных слов.
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1. life expectancy
2. risky process
3. key module
4. life-support module
5. the next great adventure
6. merely
В. Подберите к каждому выделенному в А слову соответствующее ему по значению.
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a. essential to
b. activity full of risk, danger and excitement
c. full of risk
d. expected period during which smth. is active and useful
e. only, simply
f. equipment providing an environment astronauts may live in.
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Упражнение 2. Найдите в тексте 12А:
A. Прилагательные с суффиксами -al, -ous и -ive, соответствующие словосочетаниям:
1. between different countries
2. connected with one person or part of smth.
3. connected with one country
4. that supplies reliable information
5. of technology
6. of the state, government and politics
7. coming earlier in time
8. important because of possible danger
9. full of strong desire to be or to do smth.
10. broad, extending in various or all directions
11. high priced
B. Словосочетания с этими прилагательными и приведите свои примеры.
Упражнение 3. А. Прочитайте текст и найдите слова, означающие:
height, propelling force, wished, be greater than, pressing, what remains, force directed forward, remain in space at one place, spending or using, thrust without losses, braking, small (not serious or important).
Solar Sails
If we are going to open the solar system to rapid economic travel, we need to find advanced space propulsion systems. Solar sails may be among the keys to future interplanetary flights.
Solar sail propulsion uses large, lightweight reflectors attached to spacecraft that react to the light pressure from solar photons to obtain thrust. By tilting (наклонять) the sail to change the force direction, the light pressure can be used to increase the orbital speed of the spacecraft, sending it outward from the Sun, or decrease its orbital speed, allowing it to fall inward.
A new type of solar sail, called a solar photon thruster, has a large sail that always faces the Sun for maximum light collection. The collector sail has a slight curvature (кривизна) that focuses the sunlight down onto a much smaller sail, which redirects the sunlight to provide the net thrust vector desired. Besides being more efficient than a standard sail, a solar photon thruster can be launched at Shuttle altitudes. Standard sails can only operate above 1,000 km where the light pressure exceeds the atmospheric drag.
Were a solar sail made light enough, it could «hover» without orbiting, the light pressure from the solar photons balancing the gravity attraction of the Sun and/or Earth. Then it would be possible to use solar sails first for communication, broadcast, and weather satellites, second for scientific stations hovering over the Sun and the rest of the solar system, and third for transporting cargo to and from Earth, the planets, and asteroid belt — without an expenditure of fuel.
В |
В. Найдите к словам в колонке А антонимы из колонки В.
А
1. long 2. forward 3. increase 4. heavy 5. slow 6. invisible 7. changing 8. with 9. simplicity 10. rise 11. presence 12. outward |
a. absence b. permanent c. rapid d. short e. lightweight f. complexity g. rearward h. inward i. visible j. without k. decrease 1. fall |
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В |
1. launch 2. promote 3. conduct 4. increase/lower |
С. Составьте словосочетания глаголов из колонки А и существительных из колонки В.
A
a. study, investigation, research, experiment, test
b. speed, thrust, pressure, cost, drag
c. satellite, spacecraft, space station, rocket
d. cooperation, development, technical progress
Упражнение 4. Заполните пропуски словами.
aboard life-support key facilities assembly supply maintenance stays weightless tool
1........... systems of the ISS are expected to be the most advanced, they can... cleaner air, purer water, better food, and more sanitary toilet... than on the space shuttle. 2. Life... the station may not be easy, but it is significantly healthier and more pleasant than in the past, allowing astronauts to focus more on the scientific research and station... that occupy them for about 9 hours a day. 3. Thanks to the long... on Mir station researchers learned that bone loss did not lessen over time as previously thought. 4. In the... environment of space, everyday activities present new challenges. 5. The Mobile Servicing System to be supplied by Canada is a four-piece robotic... that will play a... role in... and maintenance of the ISS.
Упражнение 5. А. Назовите 15—20 ключевых слов и словосочетаний на тему «The International Space Station».
В. Speak about:
Solar sail propulsion systems.
REVISION OF LESSONS 10-12
Упражнение 1. Повторите инфинитив, инфинитивные конструкции, сослагательное наклонение и особенности пассивного залога. Переведите предложения.
1. The Internet is a great place to find and hear hit songs, movies and recorded interviews. 2. It is imperative that the experiment begin at once. 3. If I were you, I should stop the experiment. 4. He wished he were a cosmonaut. 5. A new car model was much spoken about. 6. Nobody saw the professor enter the laboratory. 7. It seems to be an interesting comparison. 8. His experience in the field of materials science can be relied upon. 9. This theory is hard to prove. 10. The new discovery was often referred to. 11. We expect this book to appear in bookshops very soon. 12. Scientists appear to know very little of this phenomenon yet. 13. The main problem is for the report to be published as soon as possible. 14. Materials to be brought back to Earth from space laboratories will have some stable properties. 15. It is unusual for a program to work correctly the first time it is tested. 16. Some experiments on the ISS could result in the development of clocks a thousand times more accurate than today's atomic clocks. 17. There are all kinds of life-supporting equipment aboard a spacecraft as it is essential that cosmonauts should feel themselves as comfortable as possible. 18. Lasers are supposed to be able to solve a number of very complicated problems connected with medicine. 19. One of the most important requirements for hypersonic craft is a sophisticated cooling system lest extreme temperatures should destroy the craft. 20. Educational system suggested by William Rodgers, the founder of MIT, proved to be very effective and to give a sound command of the basic principles of science and technology. 21. People always wished that there were a device that could vaporize the hardest and the most heat-resistant material. 22. A number of important innovations such as reducing the weight of airplanes and spacecrafts would have been impossible unless composite materials had been developed. 23. Scientists discovered superconductors to possess thermal, electric and magnetic properties quite different from the non-conducting materials. 24. The cost of electricity generation has been influenced by the development of electromagnets made with superconductors. 25. To produce the superconductive effect, a Dutch physicist cooled a mercury wire below a temperature of —269 °C. 26. We know optical disks to store much more information than a plastic disk of the same size. 27. Laser was dreamt of by mankind for centuries. 28. The applications of laser in industry and science are known to be numerous and varied. 29. The appearance of laser was followed by the fabrication of ultrathin silicon fibers capable of servicing as lightweight conductors. 30. Some metals and glasses to be cooled down to the point of solidification in space can be brought back to Earth.
Упражнение 2. Прочитайте и переведите текст, обращая внимание на инфинитивные конструкции.
Programming Languages
The only language computers can understand directly is called machine code. It is known to consist of the Is and 0s (binary code) that are processed by the CPU. However, machine code as a means of communication is very difficult to write. That is why it is necessary to use symbolic languages that are easier to understand. Then, by using a special program, these languages can be translated into machine code.
Basic languages, in which the program is similar to the machine code version, are known as low-level languages. In these languages, each instruction is equivalent to a single machine code instruction, and the program is converted into machine code by a special program called an assembler. These languages are considered to be still quite complex and restricted to particular computers.
To make the program easier to write and to overcome the problem of intercommunication between different types of machines, higher-level languages were developed such as BASIC, COBOL, FORTRAN, Pascal, Ada, С and others. A higher-level language is a problem oriented programming language, whereas a low-level language is machine oriented. This means that a high-level language is a convenient and simple means of describing the information structures and sequences of actions to be performed for a particular task.
A high-level language is independent of the architecture of the computer which supports it. This has two advantages. Firstly, the person writing the program does not have to know anything about the computer the program will be run on. Secondly, programs are portable, that is, the same program can (in theory) be run on different types of computer. Programs written in one of these languages should be converted by means of a compiler into a lower-level language or machine code so that the CPU could understand it.
С, a high-level programming language, seems to be very popular today because it is small, so it is not too hard to learn, it is very efficient and portable so one can use it with all kinds of computers. A lot of software engineers use С to write commercial applications programs for mini, micro and personal computers. There are also various versions of С — C++ and Objective C, which represent a new style of programming.
At present there is a tendency towards an even higher level of programming languages, which might be called specification languages, and an increasing use of software development tools.
People communicate instructions to the computer in symbolic languages and the easier this communication can be made, the wider the application of computers will be. Scientists are reported to be already working on Artificial Intelligence and the next generation of computers may be able to understand human languages.
Упражнение 3. А. Прочитайте текст упражнения 2 и заполните пропуски словами.
programming compiler programmed program assembler language programmers portable low-level machine code
1. A computer... is a set of instructions that tells the computer what to do. 2. Converting an algorithm into a sequence of instructions in a programming language is called.... 3. Most computer... make a plan of the program before writing it. 4. Coding is the translation of the logical steps into a programming.... 5. In the next century computers will be... in natural languages like English or French. 6. A... is a special program that converts a program written in a high-level language into a program written in a lower level language. 7. It is difficult to use......, which is the only language understood by the processor. 8. A special program called... converts a program written in a low-level language into machine code. 9. If the same program can be used for different computers, it is called.... 10. In a... language each instruction has a corresponding machine code equivalent.
B. Speak about:
The new programming language you have heard of or read about.
SUPPLEMENTARY TEXTS
To be read after Lesson 1
Education
Most Americans start to school at the age of five when they enter kindergarten. Children do not really study at this time. They only attend for half the day and learn what school is like. Children attend elementary school for next six years. They learn to read and write and work with numbers. They also study the world and its people. After they leave elementary school, children go to junior high school for three years and senior high school for another three years. This is called secondary education. In some places the children go to elementary school for eight years and high school for four. At any rate, elementary and secondary education together take twelve years to complete excluding kindergarten.
In their secondary schooling children get more advanced knowledge and begin to concentrate on their special interests. They usually study further in history, geography, government and English language and literature.
They may choose to study foreign languages, advanced mathematics or science, such as physics or chemistry. Students who plan to go on to college or professional training must take some of these courses in order to enter college. Other students who do not intend to go on with school may take classes in accounting or typing or other subjects that will help them in the business world. Some senior high schools are vocational. Boys may learn to operate machines or do other work. Girls may learn cooking, sewing or office work. High schools have athletic teams which play against teams from other schools. Many boys enjoy playing football, basketball or baseball. These games take place after school hours. Girls are given physical education too, but they do not usually play teams from another schools.
In the most places in the US children must attend school until they are sixteen, or until they finish high school, usually at the age of seventeen or eighteen. Some children who are not good students drop out of school at the age of sixteen. This is a growing problem, for it is harder and harder for people to find work when they have not finished their high school education.
Public schools are free for all boys and girls, but some parents prefer to send their children to private schools. Some private schools are connected with churches and children receive religious instruction as well as their regular studies. Other private schools are not religious, but have small classes and very good teachers so that the parents think their children will get a better education there than in the larger classes of the public schools. The private schools do not receive any tax money, so most of them must charge the students several hundred dollars a year to pay for the cost of the school. Boys and girls attend the public schools together, but many private schools are for girls only or for boys only.
To be read after Lesson 2
The Trees Fell — So Did the People
Early civilisations may have killed themselves off by plundering (хищнически уничтожать) local plants and animals. New archeo- logical findings suggest that far from living in perfect harmony with nature, prehistoric civilisation dealt major and sometimes fatal blow to natural surroundings. Many investigators now question the idea that environmental problems began only with the industrial revolution in the 19th century.
Long before the appearance of industrial civilization prehistoric societies were destroying (уничтожать) forests, plants, animals and farmland. Such destruction sometimes destroyed them in turn.
The mysterious disappearance of Anasasi Indians may be a dramatic example of this. In territories that are now New Mexico and Arizona the Indians built a complex of roads, irrigation systems and giant «houses» with 800 rooms and more. All were abruptly left by them around A.D. 1200. Until now, the majority of archeologists have believed that the reason was a prolonged drought (засуха), but by using an electron microscope to analyze the tree rings American scientists found that over two centuries or so the Indians were systematically deforesting the canyon where they lived until the forests' ability to replenish itself was destroyed.
Some Words About Words
With about 200,000 words in current usage English is generally regarded as the richest of the world's languages. Few other languages can match this word power. Chinese comes close. German has a vocabulary of only 184,000 words, and French has fewer than 100,000 words.
English owes its exceptionally large vocabulary to its ability to borrow and absorb words from outside. Atomic, jeans, khaki, sputnik, perestroika, glasnost are just a few of the many words that have come into use during this century. They have been taken or adopted from Italian, Hindi, Creek and Russian. The process of borrowing words from other languages has been going on for more than 1,000 years. When the Normans crossed over from France to conquer England in 1066, most of the English spoke old English or Anglo-Saxon — a language of about 30,000 words. The Normans spoke a language which was a mixture of Latin and French. It took about three centuries for the language to become one that is the ancestor of the English they speak today. The Normans gave us words such as «city», and «palace». The Anglo-Saxon gave us «ring and town».
Latin and Greek have been a fruitful source of vocabulary since the 16th century. The Latin word «mini», its opposite «maxi» and the Greek word «micro» have become popular adjectives to describe everything from bikes to fashion.
To be read after Lesson 3
Nuclear Power? Well, Yes
Although nuclear reactors have generated electricity commercially for more than 40 years and nearly 400 now in operation, two major accidents — in the US in 1979 and Chernobyl in the USSR in 1986 — have put the industry under a radioactive cloud. In the popular imagination, reactors are nuclear bombs; even if they don't explode, they go on accumulating waste that will finally cause a global catastrophe.
As a result, an energy source once considered as the fuel of the future became questionable. But not everywhere. Nuclear power provides nearly a quarter of the electricity generated in the industrialized Western world by the 24-member countries of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. In France more than 76 % of electric power is nuclear-generated, in Belgium — 62 %, Sweden — 50 %, Germany, Switzerland, Spain and Finland come in at one third, Japan — a little less; Britain, the US and Canada — under 20 %. Some countries have no nuclear power plants at all and don't want any.
Not only the strong emotions of fear have worked against nuclear power. Energy demand grew more slowly than expected in the past decade. Prices of oil and coal have reduced. However, energy prices can rise. Moreover, supplies of fossil fuel are limited, while
energy needs and tide (прилив) can't meet the increasing requirements. Besides, nuclear power doesn't add to global warming.
All this causes the people to believe that the world can't live and work without nuclear power.
To be read after Lesson 4
Telecommunication
A group of people enter a room, the lights go down, the screens come... the videoconference is under way.
Tomorrow's scientific fiction has become today's new technology -a daily reality for global companies who recognise the importance of regular communication between groups of people in different locations around the world.
Essentially the videoconference room resembles a usual conference room. Delegates sit along one side of a table facing their colleagues on screen on the other side. They can see, hear and talk to each other simultaneously and can present slides of diagrams, even pieces of equipment. The technology is relatively simple. A device called videocodec takes the picture, digitalizes it for transmission over a special network and reforms the picture at the other end.
The problem today is to manufacture codec to the new international standard and to improve picture quality through faster transmission speeds. Research and development is also focusing on mobile videoconferencing with broadcast quality pictures which enable to have instant communication with colleagues around the world.
There is no doubt about the effectiveness of videoconferencing, as the videoconference eliminates the working time lost through travel.
The First Travelling Post Office
The first travelling post office in the United States was Abraham Lincoln's hat. That was a strange place, indeed, for mail; but that is where it was kept. Lincoln was appointed postmaster of New Salem, a small Western town, about the year 1833. The postman visited the place once a week and brought the mail — a dozen letters, perhaps, and two or three newspapers — in his saddle (седло) bags. He was always met by Postmaster Lincoln who put the letters into his hat for safekeeping. Lincoln was also the clerk in the country store, so he had a good opportunity to distribute the mail. But if people did not come for it, he put on his hat and delivered it. So New Salem was the first town in the US to have rural free delivery, even though the postmaster received very small pay for his work. At that time, stamps and envelopes were not used. When the sender of a letter paid the postal charges, the postmaster wrote PAID in the large letters on the face of the letter. But the postal rates were so high that the sender seldom paid them. Thus, the mailing charges were usually collected from the person who received the mail. The postmaster always held his postal receipts until a government representative came for them.
The Internet
The Internet is a magnificent global network with millions and millions of computers and people connected to one another where each day people worldwide exchange an immeasurable amount of information, electronic mail, news, resources and, more important, ideas.
It has grown at a surprising rate. Almost everyone has heard about it and an increasing number of people use it regularly. The current estimate is that over 70 million people are connected, in some way, to the Internet — whether they know it or not.
With a few touches at a keyboard a person can get access to materials in almost everywhere. One can have access to full-text newspapers, magazines, journals, reference works, and even books. The Web is one of the best resources for up-to-date information. It is a hypertext-based system by which you can navigate through the Internet. Hypertext is the text that contains links to other documents. A special program known as «browser» can help you find news, pictures, virtual museums, electronic magazines, etc. and print Web pages. You can also click on keywords or buttons that take you to other pages or other Web sites. This is possible because browsers understand hypertext markup language or code, a set of commands to indicate how a Web page is formatted and displayed.
Internet Video conferencing programs enable users to talk to and see each other, exchange textual and graphical information, and collaborate.
Internet TV sets allow you to surf the Web and have e-mail while you are watching TV, or vice versa. Imagine watching a film on TV and simultaneously accessing a Web site where you get information on the actors of the film. The next generation of Internet-enabled televisions will incorporate a smart-card for
home shopping, banking and other interactive services. Internet- enabled TV means a TV set used as an Internet device.
The Internet is a good example of a wide area network (WAN). For long-distance or worldwide communications, computers are usually connected into a wide area network to form a single integrated network. Networks can be linked together by telephone lines or fibre-optic cables. Modern telecommunication systems use fi- bre-optic cables because they offer considerable advantages. The cables require little physical space, they are safe as they don't carry electricity, and they avoid electromagnetic interference.
Networks on different continents can also be connected via satellites. Computers are connected by means of a modem to ordinary telephone lines or fibre-optic cables, which are linked to a dish aerial. Communication satellites receive and send signals on a transcontinental scale.
To be read after Lesson 5
Harnessing (обуздание) the Speed of Light
When American engineer Alan Huang revealed his plans to build an optical computer, most scientists considered this idea as hopeless. It was impractical, if not possible, they said, to create a general-purpose computer that could use pulses of light rather than electrical signals to process data. During one of the scientist's lectures on the subject, a third of the audience walked out. At another one, some of the scientists laughed, calling the researcher a dreamer.
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